Fetish Arete, Shark’s Fin (Monument Basin)

The route isn’t listed on here, so I’m looking for beta from anyone who has done it in the last 40 years!

Thanks in advance, 

Desert Rock: rock climbs in the national parks by Eric Bjornstad 

Selected climbs in the desert southwest by Cameron Burns

both have beta, both worth buying. burns is a bit more in depth with fetish arete. i would expect to replace tat:)

Hey Martin I’ve been trying to respond to your email at kinderguides but for some reason none of my emails go through? Perhaps try emailing me again headlikeasiv @ yahoo.com and I can respond with thoughts pictures. 

Jeremy McCormickwrote:

Hey Martin I’ve been trying to respond to your email at kinderguides but for some reason none of my emails go through? Perhaps try emailing me again headlikeasiv @ yahoo.com and I can respond with thoughts pictures. 

Hey Jeremy - try this new email address, it might work:-

martinkocsis@proton.me

Stevie Haston, Laurence Gauoult, me, first free ascent (second ascent of Fetish Arete). What do I remember?

P1: straightforward, up the arete to a ledge, belay. Maybe 5.9? Or 5.10? R? some bold liebacking? Reasonably solid rock?

P2: I stepped left onto north side, went up a crack system to bulging steep detachable flakes then traversed left on crumbly edges into a right-facing dihedral. Then up this to a really large ledge/shoulder. 5.10? For me, the crux. I think the original FA route went a different way, like, around right onto the south face then up an obvious wide crack? The sort of thing that would be easy to aid but strenuous to free. Which is why I chose to go onto the north face. It was also a hot day. This may have been a poor decision. I talked to someone who repeated this and they suggested that they did not find the crumbly edges traverse unduly challenging. YMMV....

P3/P4. Up the arete, with a few steps to the left and right. Better rock, clean. Cams here and there. A few hard moves but generally okay. Technically there is an actual 5.10+ crux move (this was about the only point of aid on the FA) and it is nicely protected (?) by a fixed piece, bolt? Drilled piton? that facilitated their aid move and allowed us a worry-free free ascent. Somewhere very high is a scary 5.7++ mantel move onto a large block.  

I don't recall what we did for the descent. Most likely we descended the way we came up because it's steep AF the other way. We also had the remains of my (ouch!) newly core-shot rope to allow for extending anchors as far as needed.

EDIT: I see Noah McKelvin already added Shark's Fin to the database so I added Fetish Arete too. I found some old notes so that page has more details and is more accurate that what I wrote here^^^

https://www.mountainproject.com/route/202596343/fetish-arete

I really appreciate that Steve. With your input and some guidebook photos from Jeremy I've got an excellent description of the route. Exciting times!

Armed with the new info on here from you all, we dropped into Monument Basin and had a marvellous time. The route unfolded really nicely with no nasty surprises. The first pitch was loose & bold with a bit of ledgefall potential at the start of the corner, but after that it was a great desert experience. Good belays, decent fixed gear and a fine summit with a historical register. Easy descent in 3 raps. I've added our pitch descriptions to the route page. This formation deserves way more traffic.

Congrats! Such a wild formation. Any future suitors to the Fin may benefit from the beta and photos in our trip report.

Crusher, you may recognize your handwriting. We took photos of every page for posterity.